When Microsoft slacks off, it’s security holes galore. But when Microsoft is serious about security, it’s serious. In fact, so serious that even a security guide is a beta product with beta testers et al. The “Windows Vista Security Guide” is a forest-threatening document that covers everything inside out about security in Windows Vista. I missed their warning “The guide is not intended for home users” first time round. I’ve been scarred for life.

The Windows Vista Security Guide is primarily for consultants, security specialists, systems architects, and IT professionals who plan application or infrastructure development and deployments of Windows Vista in both desktop and laptop client computers in an enterprise environment.

They say actions speak louder than words. But I beg to differ.

I give you, the 186 page monster. I’d hate to be the system administrator intern reading through this when Windows Vista launches.

I’ve been a long-time user of Netgear products. I have a WGT624 wireless router and several machines with WGT311 wireless network adapter. I’ve even recommended many friends and family members the same set of wireless products for their own networking needs due to Netgear’s easy-to-setup and cost-effective solutions. I’ve encountered a few problems over the years, but one recently that really threw me over.

I could cope with a wireless router that had heating problems – causing itself to lock up once in a while requiring a manual restart, and wireless signal problems at a computer literally 2 meters below the router (downstairs), but I can’t cope with dying hardware. And I’m not the only one with these problems. Previously when Netgear did host a community forum, it was full of overheating and signal problems, I guess it wasn’t exactly the type of publicity they were looking for.

I had a network adapter just die on me. One hour it works fine, and next it was in heaven. I’ve tried uninstalling/reinstalling drivers and even taking the card and moving it into a different PCI slot. I’ve tried changing configurations on the router and everything else I knew. It just won’t connect anymore.

Does anyone recommend any networking solutions? I’ve heard no issues from any Belkin customers. D-Link on the other hand is even worse. And would anyone have experience having a Belkin adapter connecting to a Netgear router?

I received this local government newsletter today. It had all the usual, nurses magically appeared out of nowhere to aid the sick, millions and billions funded into research projects, some elderlies got an award, roads getting widened (again) and school facilities upgraded. It’s lifespan is usually from the mailbox to the recycling bin, but this caught my eye.

$89.3 million dollars from hard-working tax payers, and what do students get? A lousy 4 megabit internet connection. Some mobile phones have higher data rates than 4 megabits.

There are about 1606 schools in the state of Victoria. If the money is spread evenly, each school receives about $55,604 to provide its students with internet access. I pay about $780 a year for a 10 megabit cable connection with a monthly download limit of 60GB. If the government funded me, In one year, I could afford 71 simultaneous cable connections resulting in a 710 megabit connection with a 4TB monthly download allowance. Spread over 2 years, I could afford 35 connections resulting in a 355 megabit connection with 2TB monthly download allowance.

You can see where I’m going with this. I’ve had first hand experience with internet in Victorian government schools. It really sucks. I don’t know where they get the idea of “collaboration” from, but you were banned from accessing any external emails or any communication networks. Good luck even trying to collaborate with another school, let alone the world.

Apparently Olympus does. Thanks to a tip from Scott who points me to imaging resource, “Olympus: Prototype wood-bodied digicam“. Olympus has developed a technology which allows it to create the cast of a camera body using compressed wood. And this wood would be made so hard that it can match the hardness of currently used polycarbonate materials? What does it look like?

It’s great that they can put wood on an electronic gadget, but why all the locomotion? It’s not like wood is the hardest texture to replicate, I mean you can get phone covers that look like it was cut straight from the forest. And speaking of forests, what good does this technology bring to the industry? Sure we need to move away from our dependence on oil, but is cutting down 2.5 times more forest to compress into camera bodies the best solution? At least trees regenerate and oil doesn’t. I see that this technology can improve, and I hope it will improve its efficiency first. I can’t wait for the new wooden iPod.

Olympus says its all about aesthetics. But all I can picture (pun intended), is a camera for naturalists, who would want to blend into the environment when taking their next snapshots of mother earth.

But whilst we’re on the topic of wood, trees, mother earth and cameras. I urge everyone to check out this video on Lyrebirds. Did you know they can imitate camera sounds?

Ever since 2005, Windows Vista’s network team has been confidently promoting the new network stack in Windows Vista. For those who don’t know, a network stack or any stack for that matter is the foundation of an operating system which implements the various protocols. This is the software that will have the direct interface to your network hardware, and all other network applications such as Internet Explorer and Bittorent will utilize this network stack to send and receive data across a network. Their claim in 2005 was that the new network stack will deliver higher thoroughput and increase network performance for most users around the world. That’s a pretty bold claim.

When anyone claims they can make your internet go faster, you should be skeptical of it. But the Microsoft people seemed rather confident, and didn’t want to sell me any homeloans, replica watches or pills. So I took up the challenge.

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Update: I’ve been kindly informed by Josh from WindowsConnected.com that these wallpapers are very old. In fact, so old that it makes the 4th generation iPod look new. Actually they are only dated back to 1st of June, 2006. But since I’ve removed the branding, some of you might still find it interesting.

These wallpapers come from the Microsoft Partners website for Windows Vista. They’re a little different to most of the Auroras I’ve seen, but Auroras all look the same these days. The only negative thing is that they come with the Vista orb, “see the difference” and “partners” branding. I’ve removed the “partners” branding for two of the highest resolution wallpapers (normal & widescreen) which you can scale down if you prefer not to have branding.

All three variations are bundled in the ZIP file for your desired resolution:

• Normal – 1024×768
• Normal – 1280×1024
• Normal – 1600×1200 (Unbranded version)
• Widescreen – 1152×864
• Widescreen – 1280×800
• Widescreen – 1440×900 (Unbranded version)